According to earlier reports, the U.S. biofuel mandate is expressed as a fraction of corn production, which means in a bad year it's illegal to divert food from cars to people. An offer to buy corn at $X per bushel to turn into fuel would make more sense, and would have the desirable effect of stabiizing corn prices.

Every so often, I meet someone who brags about his car with lousy gas mileage. They go on and on about those pussy liberals in their Piouses and go on about how smug they are. Generally, what I say is, "So, you bought an expensive car and are shelling out lots of money in order to irritate people you don't know and who you won't meet?"

Better mileage standards, a little thought to mass transit, better insulation on houses, efficient manufacturing processes. Then, we can keep feeding corn to cattle and not to cars.

Contents Under Pressure:Every so often, I meet someone who brags about his car with lousy gas mileage. They go on and on about those pussy liberals in their Piouses and go on about how smug they are. Generally, what I say is, "So, you bought an expensive car and are shelling out lots of money in order to irritate people you don't know and who you won't meet?"

Better mileage standards, a little thought to mass transit, better insulation on houses, efficient manufacturing processes. Then, we can keep feeding corn to cattle and not to cars.

I just want a car that can park in small spaces and wastes as little gas a possible. And it's dirt-cheap.

Biofuels are a great idea, just not corn-based ethanol (which is hardly news, but the agribusiness lobby is deeply entrenched in US politics). Trouble is we can't grow enough sugar cane to meet the demand, and certain numbers make corn look "better" than alternatives like switchgrass (like ethanol yield per kilo, if you ignore how much fuel it takes to raise the crop to begin with).

With the fast food value menus, its easy to feed a lot of mouths. $15-$20 can feed a work crew. You can get 20 half-pound burritos from Del or cheeseburgers from Wendys, or 3-4 $5 larges from Little Ceasers. Its not the best nutrition wise, but itll pack a bunch of hungry guys stomachs for a relatively tiny amount of cash.

/I really only frequent the supermarket for meat when I BBQ, so you might see where Im coming from...

Price of oil and the drought. *clicks article* Yep. I don't think corn should be going for ethanol when there are farmers scrambling to feed their livestock because of poor harvests. I get (free) beef that is mostly grass-fed. It's scary seeing how expensive the regular stuff is in stores, much less the good beef.

Kensey:Biofuels are a great idea, just not corn-based ethanol (which is hardly news, but the agribusiness lobby is deeply entrenched in US politics). Trouble is we can't grow enough sugar cane to meet the demand, and certain numbers make corn look "better" than alternatives like switchgrass (like ethanol yield per kilo, if you ignore how much fuel it takes to raise the crop to begin with).

Indeed, info in the news on a "2nd Gen" ethanol plant in North-central Iowa indicated that they would be paying $1-2 per ton for the "waste products" (cobs, husks and the like). Still a good deal if farmers were getting nothing for them before, and while that ton of waste may only make half as much ethanol as the corn, it costs a tiny fraction of the price of that much corn (Corn is over $8 a bushel, and there's a lot of bushels in a ton). As a bonus, you don't need to devote fields to the feed-stock, and you can still sell the corn. Hell, in a drought year like this, you can still sell the stalks and husks, rather then plow the crop under and write the year off.

Pfft, so what? Even if we were ever to become truly energy independent the chicken hawks who think it's soooo cool to spend 20% of GDP on a military that's 50x bigger than every other country on the planet so we can patrol off the coast of Iran would still be whining about welfare mothers.

Portia:Price of oil and the drought. *clicks article* Yep. I don't think corn should be going for ethanol when there are farmers scrambling to feed their livestock because of poor harvests. I get (free) beef that is mostly grass-fed. It's scary seeing how expensive the regular stuff is in stores, much less the good beef.

Dammit I need to learn to preview. To follow up on ethanol--aren't there much better materials for making biofuel than corn? It's been a long time since I've read up on it. I remember something about sugarbeets and see someone brought up switchgrass.

Waste management and Algae (one of the 40 strains that creates oil that we know about)

45% of our oil consumption could be made from the human waste stream using thermal depolymerization.the ammonia in our urea (urine) could be used to feed the algae, and then the algae could be harvested and put through thermal depolymerization.

Water recycling of gray water/run off could reduce our daily wasted water to 10% of current levels.

Using lighter materials for vehicles and a hotter oil base temperature (changing from 200 degree to 250 to 300 degree) combined could cut usage by nearly 87% without changing engine types.

Capturing methane emissions from livestock, and using manure from livestock and investing in closer to closed loop agriculture would also decrease waste in the process of food production.

The technology exists for the conversion. It could be accomplished in 12 years, we wouldn't be set back economically, we would be free from the grasp of foriegn and corporate energy controls for the most part, and we could finally reduce the price of food and fuel, electricity and even start rebuilding the full infrastructure of the country, for the current price of 1 year's energy cost (2.2 Trillion).

All this economic benefit, without a single word about the environment.

We could fix it. But since the oil and coal companies bought CNN and the election coversage, no one gets to talk about it.

My 1997 Honda Accord (353,000 miles, still going) was in an accident a few weeks ago. I ended up selling it to the guy at the body shop (he's going to fix it up for his wife) and buying a 2009 Civic.

Old mid-size sedan -> newer compact = big gain in mileage, right? Not so much. The Accord got 27-28 MPG on my daily commute (33-35 on the highway at 70 MPH), and when you floored it, it downshifted and moved pretty snappy. To get the Civic to accelerate like that I usually have to shift it down to D2 manually, and on my daily commute it gets... 32-33 MPG.

My daily commute is 200 miles round-trip, and even with those ridiculous mileages the Civic is saving me all of about $70 a month in gas (and to be fair, probably a decent amount in annual fix-it work, but that was only about $1000 a year on the Accord). I looked at the hybrid Civic, but the mileages aren't even very impressive on that for commuting use.

Contents Under Pressure:Every so often, I meet someone who brags about his car with lousy gas mileage. They go on and on about those pussy liberals in their Piouses and go on about how smug they are. Generally, what I say is, "So, you bought an expensive car and are shelling out lots of money in order to irritate people you don't know and who you won't meet?"

Better mileage standards, a little thought to mass transit, better insulation on houses, efficient manufacturing processes. Then, we can keep feeding corn to cattle and not to cars.

I've always noticed those who boast about shiatty gas mileage are the guys who are using their cars to compensate for being too short. And their vehicles are usually these sad money-sinks and are lifted a few feet off the ground. And, honestly, I don't really listen to what they have to say. I just laugh at them when they learn about weight distribution when the first snow falls and their shiatty rear-wheel drive truck skids out whenever they try to move from a stoplight.

But America really needs to get our shiat together when it comes to energy independence. Car Culture is going to have to change, and it's going to be very hard for people who grew up with the 'Support the Big 3' mentality. Especially when a lot of smaller foreign-made (or rather, foreign-designed) vehicles are ignored by people with that same mentality.

Contents Under Pressure:Every so often, I meet someone who brags about his car with lousy gas mileage. They go on and on about those pussy liberals in their Piouses and go on about how smug they are. Generally, what I say is, "So, you bought an expensive car and are shelling out lots of money in order to irritate people you don't know and who you won't meet?"

Better mileage standards, a little thought to mass transit, better insulation on houses, efficient manufacturing processes. Then, we can keep feeding corn to cattle and not to cars.

Degenz:Pfft, so what? Even if we were ever to become truly energy independent the chicken hawks who think it's soooo cool to spend 20% of GDP on a military that's 50x bigger than every other country on the planet so we can patrol off the coast of Iran would still be whining about welfare mothers.

My 1997 Honda Accord (353,000 miles, still going) was in an accident a few weeks ago. I ended up selling it to the guy at the body shop (he's going to fix it up for his wife) and buying a 2009 Civic.

Old mid-size sedan -> newer compact = big gain in mileage, right? Not so much. The Accord got 27-28 MPG on my daily commute (33-35 on the highway at 70 MPH), and when you floored it, it downshifted and moved pretty snappy. To get the Civic to accelerate like that I usually have to shift it down to D2 manually, and on my daily commute it gets... 32-33 MPG.

My daily commute is 200 miles round-trip, and even with those ridiculous mileages the Civic is saving me all of about $70 a month in gas (and to be fair, probably a decent amount in annual fix-it work, but that was only about $1000 a year on the Accord). I looked at the hybrid Civic, but the mileages aren't even very impressive on that for commuting use.

Next car (whenever that is), I'm going diesel hybrid or bust.

I noticed that as well: My 1997 Subaru Legacy gets around 33 mpg when I'm on the highway (and within the first 3,000 miles of an oil change) and that beats the newer Legacys' projected rates. Then again, the Imprezas are getting 35mpg to start with and that is very nice for an AWD car.

Coming from someone who has relatives all over the Big 3, I can say that Subarus are awesome little vehicles.

Degenz:Pfft, so what? Even if we were ever to become truly energy independent the chicken hawks who think it's soooo cool to spend 20% of GDP on a military that's 50x bigger than every other country on the planet so we can patrol off the coast of Iran would still be whining about welfare mothers.

The comparison to oil is a bit silly, since you can't switch your car's fuel (or your factory's, for that matter) based on what's in season or on sale at the moment.

On an individual basis, with food it's just a matter of buying what's local and/or plentiful, and avoiding what isn't.

Your country doesn't grow large quantities of "maize"? Don't consume large volumes of products made from that crop.Nearby orchards have a bumper crop of apples this year? Stock up.Beef is pricey? Buy chicken instead this week. Or buy a small cut of steak and use it to add flavor and texture to your meal rather than as the primary ingredient.Fuel prices make shipping bananas from Central America expensive? Don't buy bananas for a while.A fungus has hurt the avocado crop in California this season?... hmm, what can you do about that?

Food for the sake of providing basic nutrition will continue to be cheap for quite a while. It's when we get fussy and lazy that it becomes more expensive.

Of course, on a macro level something probably needs to be done. Farm subsidies, marketing boards, import restrictions, over-reliance on GMO crops, etc. all have their problems. But for you and I in our weekly trips to the supermarket? We can easily adjust in the short- to mid-term.

Corn requires a lot of ammonia fertilizers, which require natural gas to synthesize.

I've been curious about how many miles you could drive on that natural gas versus growing the corn, taking just the seeds, and processing that into ethanol for cars. There's a lot of plant you fertilized for that you didn't make into fuel.

Britney Spear's Speculum:Degenz: Pfft, so what? Even if we were ever to become truly energy independent the chicken hawks who think it's soooo cool to spend 20% of GDP on a military that's 50x bigger than every other country on the planet so we can patrol off the coast of Iran would still be whining about welfare mothers.